The Mouth of Madness
by Caustic-Substrate
Summary: The Daedra are a curious bunch, with seemingly unknowable personalities and motivations. Even so, I've decided to take a stab at depicting the events that led up to Jyggalag being cursed with madness. It may be out-of-character, but that's difficult to say, since we've heard and seen very little from the Lord of Order. Criticism always welcome.


The Mouth of Madness

"_In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." – Carl Jung_

Her entrance into his plain of Oblivion was marked by a company of guards surrounding the portal that revealed her form. It was a meaningless gesture; as one of the 16 Daedric Lords her power was far beyond all of his guards, even at the epicenter of his realm. The armored knights on each side walked in perfect unison as they guided her down the intensely bright, perfectly uniform halls. The sides appeared to her as a mirror image of one another.

Inadvertently, her very presence started to alter the physical make-up of the immediate area. Her steps resounded with a ripple effect that caused the evenly gray guardsmen to occasionally trip and stumble. She would have normally been amused by this slight disruption to his "grand design", but on this day there were far more pressing matters.

Upon entering the main hall (found at the exact middle of his universe), she couldn't help but take a brief moment to appreciate the elaborate stronghold: It was a dome composed of several thousand crystal spires, all interweaving uniformly as they spiraled upward towards a hole at the top, several hundred feet above their heads. Countless bookshelves covered all the walls, including the outer rim of the his inner sanctum.

Walking with increasingly forceful steps, she approached the wide pedestal where he resided. The color and degree of light in the room shifted in unison with the motion of his head.

With open space on all sides, his throne had no backing. He simply sat on its circular edge with his arms resting on his legs, and his chin resting on his thumbs. Concentric circles of energy gently wafted and hovered around his head, the consequence of some unknown machination. Upon the conclusion of her march, he spoke, in a voice that seemed to resonate in every inch of the structure:

"You've arrived, as I'd expected. Perhaps three tenths of a second faster than anticipated, but largely as I'd foreseen."

"I wasn't aware your realm of influence included prediction." She responded in a flattened tone, utterly devoid of emotion.

"Neither was I," he added, "at least not until I expanded my gaze eons ago. Turns out all events can be predicted with a great degree of accuracy when one has enough information, and a mind profound enough to consolidate it all."

With that, a wave reverberated around the vast dome, causing all objects and figures to become temporarily distorted, including the vast library. Each book on every shelf was filled with records of every action ever taken by all creatures, both mortal and daedric. It was a record of time itself, since the first tentative steps the Lord of Order took into reality.

Eventually the shaking subsided. If Azura's steps had been ripples in a pond, Jyggalag's warping of reality was a torrent in an ocean storm. Only natural, this was his world and all bent to his will. That is, everything accept Azura.

She remained unwavering, not so much as blinking in the face of the shift. "I've come to negotiate, you've been intruding in the realms of your fellow Daedra. Our balance of interests is maintained because we each respect boundaries, you should do the same."

After a drawn-out silence, Jyggallag's voice rang out in the mind's of his followers with two simple words:

"Leave us."

Instantly, all of his servants (previously reading and writing in vast tomes around the circular space), stood up and exited through the half dozen halls around the circumference.

Alone in the massive bubble of empty space, the air seemed palpably still between the architects of order and twilight. Several human lifetimes had passed since the last occasion they had spoken face-to-face; their previous discussion had ended...harshly. The light that cast down through transparent sections of crystal began to dance in constant flux, casting shadows like dozens of large dust particulates.

Abruptly Jyggalag stood and began to walk around his cylindrical throne, arms behind his back like a lawyer presenting his case. His first thoughts came out with an atypical jocularity; "It's a pity I had to make them leave." He said, gesturing to the seats around him. "They were writing about all that has happened in every plain of existence over the past five minutes, exciting stuff. No doubt one of them was writing about your entrance. I, for one, am glad that we have those records for posterity."

"Have you no response that pertains to m..." The Lord of Order cut into her query.

"I find it amusing" he said through expressionless gray eyes, nearly indistinguishable from his face's complexion "that the one whose sphere is the period of transition and change, finds my period of change objectionable. What's the matter? Do you only see appeal in the twilight hours? Just before Nocturnal takes over the reigns in favor of her own frivolity?"

"Brother, listen to me..."

"Do not call me that!" He thundered, causing a slight fissure to spider out from where he'd sat. For a split-second his eyes gave off a luminescence similar to her own. The more he fumed, the greater the intricacy of the cracks became beneath their feet.

Then, as quick as they started, the fractures stopped, regressing back to non-existence just as he regained his composure. He cleared his throat before continuing; "We are not siblings, none of us are. These filial bonds we impose on one another are nonsensical. We have no mother, no father. We don't even have _genders_. We do not know our exact origins, nor can we claim a blood-based link. The only thing we can claim to have in common is this illusory sense of individuality."

With those final words, the room dimmed slightly, he returned to his seat and his thumbs returned to his chin, just beneath the outward arches of his helmet. "But this is all pedantic mumbling," He said. "You want me to return to my own area of influence. I refuse."

"You are the lord of order, deduction, logic and symmetry. What do you hope to accomplish by these intrusions? Would you tear down the very order you exist to maintain?"

"There are many paths to order, Azura." He replied, "True, my actions will cause a brief period of unrest; but I have gazed into the vast fountain of potentialities, and have seen that the extension of my power to your realms would inevitably create a perfect unity, a perfect order governed solely by logic and nothing else."

Azura's displeasure became increasingly evident; the area around her crackled with deeply shadowed energy. Her voice no longer maintained its typical serenity and composure. "It isn't your place to make such a decision. There are so many aspects to Oblivion, limiting them to one perspective is madness."

This statement caused an immediate reaction in Jyggalag. The room filled with near blinding light, speckled with floating spherical blurs of anti-matter. Everything in the room, including Jyggalag's fully dull-gray armor, became pure white with deep shadows, as though the sun had decided to shine mere inches above their heads. The heat could have melted a mortal, as he spoke: "You think I'm mad?"

"You aren't making a strong case for sanity."

He scoffed, causing the light to subside.

"It isn't too late, Jyggalag." She continued. "I know you don't think of me in the same terms, but I've always thought of you as a kindred mind, one that looks beyond the face value of life affairs towards objective truth."

"My design is beyond you, that doesn't make it incorrect."

"Hermaes Mora is certain you will fail, Nocturnal is prepared to vastly reduce the likelihood of your success, and Mephala has already begun to sew an impossibly complicated web of deceit against you. You cannot hope to achieve your designs."

"I know." He said.

"That's right you know. Wait. What?"

"I know those plans are being put into motion. I knew they would be your reaction centuries ago when I first began formulating this little uprising."

"Then why..."

"Why did I decide to follow through? Because it is you who underestimates me, not the other way around."

"Is that so?" She challenged.

In the time it took for her to blink, the world around them vanished and they were in a vast, blank, white space occupied by nothing else besides themselves. "I know the exact position and momentum of every infinitesimally small particle that saturates the earth and sky. I can perfectly anticipate what nearly anyone will say, even before they walk into the room. I have an adept knowledge of every subject that has ever been or ever might be."

"Enough with the threat displays Jyggalag; it's unbecoming." She said while dismissively waving her hand.

"Most importantly," He said, with a minute smirk appearing behind his helmet, "I now know precisely what is occurring in all the other Plains of Oblivion."

Azura's face became dotted with confusion, "How could you..." Confusion became replaced by sudden understanding.

"The spires." She said. "The spires your platoons placed in our worlds. They do more than give your forces power."

"Correct." He replied. "They also spread my influence, like a virus that seeps into a mortal's bloodstream, weakening and corrupting the entire body."

"That's why you sent such large forces," She said with ever-increasing concern. "to distract us from your actual plan, to convince us you lacked the strength to challenge us."

"Correct again. By now you probably also realize that I wouldn't have told you this unless I believed it was too late for you to alter the outcome. Do you see now? It doesn't matter what the others have foreseen; my vision is clearer. Certainty and predestination will come to reign over the irrational worlds of men and daedra alike."

With that they reappeared in the center of the dome, now full of his followers recording and reading, like they had never left. After a tentative pause, in which Azura looked back at her fellow immortal with disbelief and melancholy, she probed for answers one last time:

"If everything you said is true, why not attempt to destroy me now? Why not solidify your visions clarity? For that matter, why did you even allow me to enter?"

"You and I both know that it isn't possible for Daedra to kill one another, we can only inhibit. I had intended on imprisoning you here, but I've decided against that; it would be an unnecessary waste of energy keeping you in chains."

"I can't help but think there's more to it than that." She said, pressing the matter.

He mused, debating with himself, before finally deriving an answer; "Because...as I said before, I can predict what any conversation with my underlings will entail. They are a narrow minded bunch, no challenge in predicting there actions. Though I don't place us on equal footing, your presence and influence provide me with a brief respite from the typical ebb and flow. Even now I'm alternating between possible lines that our dialogue may take. It...briefly enlivens me, brings me back to a state I once knew, many millennium ago."

The light in the room softened, nearly imperceptible, but there all the same. They both remained motionless and silent, correlating their individual thoughts, debating on the next few seconds, hours, weeks, and eons. She saw a slight twitching in his hands, now resting on his lap. She wondered what it signified: Anxiousness? Nervousness? An internal struggle?

No longer seeing a need to remain, she began her departure. "I've said my piece, Jyggalag. The outcome is now in your hands."

"For once, we can agree on something."

"But know this," she added, "I take no responsibility for what might happen next."

"We're done here. I trust you can see yourself out."

As Azura turned to leave, so did the knights of order who first surrounded her. Before anyone had taken so much as a single step, Jyggalag's voice echoed all around, causing followers to scrawl jagged lines on once pristine archives, and the armor of guards to temporarily splinter before reforming.

"**She can see herself out.**" he announced.

The guards stepped away as she continued towards the same brightly lit hall she'd first entered through. Before disappearing out of sight, she gently spoke, in a directed voice only the Lord of Order could discern:

"I too remember what you once were, when we first took our steps into consciousness, when you believed that order without limits was no order at all, only stagnation. If there are any true emotions left in you at all, besides anger, I sincerely hope you find contentment in the lot you have chosen."

He said nothing and kept his gaze fixated on the ground a short distance from his throne. Motionless, trapped within his own mind.

She exited the gray plane, appearing in a dark place where her eyes became luminous, like fireflies in a vast cave. Other glowing eyes were all around her, varying in size and number. A sonorous, gluttonous voice was the first to announce itself; "In his arrogance he revealed his plan, just as predicted, just as fate dictated."

She shook her head, discarding the voice's confidence. "We need to act now. His plan is thorough, and quickly reaching its end-game. What's more, I'm confident he didn't tell me every part of it."

"So tense, Azura," replied a shrouded figure, who absentmindedly caressed the head of a raven on her shoulder. "He's one against a dozen. He'll spread himself too thin, and all of his careful planning will fall apart before he even realizes."

"And when we reach that point, I'll crush him under my heel." An immense figure roared out, his eyes illuminating the silhouettes of those around him.

"No." Azura replied. "That won't be a permanent solution. He's eternal like the rest of..."

Her voice became drowned out by a loud dragging noise, originating from Boethiah scraping her sword against the pitch black ground in random designs. The sword sparked and grated, making a terrible shrieking noise.

"If I might interrupt this little group therapy session." She said, between reckless swipes of the blade. "There _are_ other ways to end someone without striking them down."

Azura awaited the explanation, even though she already knew the answer, had always known it: the thing needed to limit his power, to calm his mind and ambition.

The others plotted and schemed, all the while one thought kept repeating in her mind: "You think I'm mad?"

"Not yet, my brother. Not yet."


End file.
